Anthony, you're probably right. I guess there are some premises that hit really well that sounded terrible on paper.

However, as I try to think of hits of the past 20 years, on network TV, that weren't comedies ("four nerds and their attempts to get girls"), I'm not coming up with too many. That might make a good topic, I guess...

But the premise doesn't sound promising. At least to me. I'm not sure how much juice there is to get from the Khan fruit...

Who's writing anything off? I just wanna see CBS will pick some of those abandoned ideas by using a dartboard!

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Greg you wrote the worst abandoned ideas. That's why I responded with not writing them off as bad until we've seen them.

With Discovery we've seen enough of evidence to support the opinion that this one is going to be a stinker. With this Khan one we haven't seen anything yet. So no legitimate opinion can be formed. At best each of us can only say whether or not we find the idea interesting.

It doesn't really matter if these are old ideas that were abandoned. If they weren't done on screen before these will be new stories being told.

The setting and basic concept I could find interesting if it were anyone else. But I am not very interested in show specifically on Kahn. To me, Kahn is a villain and should stay that way. I am not interested in seeing his downfall, ala Breaking Kahn.

Okay. In all honesty, my go-to policy is to write off anything TOS-related, at this point. At least in live-action.

TOS was and is a cultural landmark. But, it had its time. It's over. It may continue via novels, comics, and other ancillaries, but those don't "count". They just keep the brand alive, hopefully in a fun and entertaining way.

All of these attempts to piggyback on the TOS era, characters, and concepts feel like grave-robbing, to me. The Abrams films went out of their way to try and legitimize hemselves as an extension of the existing lore (bringing in Nimoy, billing itself as an "alternate reality" that branched off from the original, etc.). Because the more recent iterations of TREK had floundered, they've gone into nostalgia-milking mode. The Abrams films are largely dependent on nostalgia and new takes on familiar characters. DISCOVERY has used its being set prior to TOS as a selling point. The most notable thing about the Michael Burnham character (so far) is that she was raised on Vulcan by Sarek and Amanda.

The makers of DISCOVERY are bending over backwards to insist that the show will stay true to canon, despite every single bit of visual and story evidence pointing to the contrary.

This proposed Khan show will surely fall into the same camp, despite Meyer's involvement. If the reports of the TREK rights breakdown are to be believed, changes from the proper canon MUST legally be made in order to differentiate any Paramount and/or Bad Robot productions from the proper canon owned by CBS.

These are fairly all risk-averse productions. Tie in with what fans know and love to lure them in.

Even with meticulous recreations of sets/props/costumes/style, there'll still necessarily be recasting. And, frankly, that sort of thing tends to break my suspension of disbelief. Ricardo Montalban was Khan. Period. I don't want to imagine anyone else in that role, even in some new and alternate interpretation (as with CumberKhan). William Shatner is Kirk, etc.

The only way I'd accept something new set in the TOS era is if it played by the rules (by maintaining a visual style reasonably in-step with the designs of TOS), and focused on new and different characters, as opposed to recasting and rethinking existing ones. Beyond that, the original characters and stories should be left alone. To paraphrase George Takei, seeing these new productions playing around with TOS characters is akin to watching children put on mom and dad's clothes and pretending to be grown-ups.

DISCOVERY may be a good show, as a show. Compelling, well-produced, and thought-provoking. But, I can't suspend disbelief and pretend it takes place in-between the TOS pilots. Nor will I likely be able to embrace a theoretical Khan series which takes place in-between TOS and TWOK. It may well be good and entertaining, but it's not gonna feel "real". That time is long past.

Okay. In all honesty, my go-to policy to to write off anything TOS-related, at this point. At least in live-action.

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Abrams films have made me feel that way. Discovery has fallen into that camp as well. Which is only natural of course since Bad Robot is involved.

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This proposed Khan show will surely fall into the same camp, despite Meyer's involvement. If the reports of the TREK rights breakdown are to be believed, changes from the proper canon MUST legally be made in order to differentiate any Paramount and/or Bad Robot productions from the proper canon owned by CBS.

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The Khan show may end up being a lame duck just like Discovery. If I see anyone from Bad Robot even mentioned. That's going to set the warning alarms off.

Even with meticulous recreations of sets/props/costumes/style, there'll still necessarily be recasting. And, frankly, that sort of thing tends to break my suspension of disbelief. Ricardo Montalban was Khan. Period. I don't want to imagine anyone else in that role, even in some new and alternate interpretation (as with CumberKhan). William Shatner is Kirk, etc.

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I feel the same way but I have resigned myself to the fact that if I want to see more adventures with these characters. I'd have to adjust to new faces. Of course after seeing Pine and Quinto I'm less inclined to want to see new faces. I would perfer new characters set during that time period.

The only way I'd accept something new set in the TOS era is if it played by the rules (by maintaining a visual style reasonably in-step with the designs of TOS), and focused on new and different characters, as opposed to recasting and rethinking existing ones.

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I agree with you 100%

DISCOVERY may be a good show, as a show. Compelling, well-produced, and thought-provoking. But, I can't suspend disbelief and pretend it takes place in-between the TOS pilots. Nor will I likely be able to embrace a theoretical Khan series which takes place in-between TOS and TWOK. It may well be good and entertaining, but it's not gonna feel "real". That time is long past.

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I serious doubt Discovery will be good.

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TRY SOMETHING NEW!

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Once again I agree 100% As I mentioned before If TPB want to get more inline with the look of Abrams films. They should set the next series after the TNG era. At least that way there is a logical and defensible excuse for the aesthetic choices they make.

I was appalled by a comment on a Podcast I was listening to, recently. One of the hosts was proclaiming that STAR WARS is so much better than STAR TREK because "STAR TREK is boring, and they just sit around and talk. In STAR WARS, they blow s*** up! People who think STAR TREK is better than STAR WARS should kill themselves."

I love STAR WARS. I really do. But, I think a good chunk of its appeal comes down to the action, pacing, and excitement, which is by no means a bad thing. However, in today's increasingly dumbed-down culture, far too many people just want to "see s*** blow up". Well-constructed drama and characters are less important that spectacle, speed, and lowbrow humor. There's a place for that, of course, but you can't have dessert for every single meal. A constant intake of empty calories and sugar is not a healthy, balanced diet.

Again, no slight to my beloved STAR WARS, but it pretty much ushered in a generation or two of genre fans who see science-fiction merely as using cool spaceships and rayguns to blow s*** up, rather than serving its proper function of exploring humanity by using subtext, allegory, and technological speculation.

In many ways, I think STAR TREK was the last mainstream gasp of proper sci-fi presenting real ideas to a mass audience. Not to say there hasn't subsequently been good sci-fi on film, of course, but rather that it's just become much more niche.

Pretty much every modern iteration of older sci-fi properties has become dumbed-down action schlock. THE TERMINATOR was a film about dehumanization (what with a machine easily passing for human in our society) and the threat of nuclear war. There are themes and ideas underneath the action-horror veneer. TERMINATOR GENISYS is about...what?

Even the TOS-era TREK films struggled with their identity. TREK works best as a TV anthology which explores multiple social issues (albeit with continuing characters), but sci-fi blockbuster films (especially in the wake of STAR WARS) have different needs. Villains, satisfying character arcs, lots of action. I think the movies did reasonably well in striking a a balance between ideas and action, but the later films--the TNG films--went completely off the rails by trying to turn Renaissance Man Picard into an action hero.

AbramsTREK is STAR TREK by way of STAR WARS, which is not what TREK is. And Abrams STAR WARS is STAR WARS by people who love STAR WARS, which doesn't really make for good STAR WARS. It's all a bunch of empty sugar-coating, which no one will care about or talk about in 10, 20, 50 years. No ideas or hidden subtext to keep people rewatching and thinking and sussing out meaning.

No ideas or hidden subtext to keep people rewatching and thinking and sussing out meaning.

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And to add insult to injury, he does his old magic box trick to pretend these things might be there, but you'll have to wait for a later installment to get the gaps filled in... and JJ will have no input to those films!

I'd rather not turn this into a STAR WARS thread, but I find great irony in that the new owners of the franchise are doing all the sort of stuff that Lucas had been accused of for years (making films just as commercials for the next one, creating bland, hollow characters just to sell toys)...and are being praised for it!

Lucas at least had themes and ideas he wanted to explore. Much-maligned as the prequels were, I still find myself coming back to them, because there are interesting concepts mixed in there. THE FORCE AWAKENS is very much out of Abrams' playbook, in regards to stringing the audience along without really giving them anything solid, and hoping that all of the sugar-coating will distract them.

The ending of TREK '09 feels just like the ending of TFA, for me: hollow and off-model. Starkiller Base is destroyed, but there's no emotional investment in its destruction, especially since we've seen it all before, anyway. Nero is defeated, and NuKirk (at NuSpock's urging) gives the order to blow the f***er up after the former rejects an offer of assistance. Which is about as appallingly unTREK-like as you could possibly get. And it's presented as a victory.

Exactly. Both serve different needs, and one doesn't have to be "better" than the other.

I've long been convinced that the only reasons fans pit them against each other are because they both have "star" in their titles, and both quickly developed intensely devoted fanbases.

One or the other may appeal more to certain types of people, but there are surely just as many people who love both passionately. Like me!

STAR WARS can't be boiled down to "sci-fi for the dumb masses", and STAR TREK can't be boiled down to "for hardcore nerds only". To do so needlessly diminishes both properties. Both are more complex than that.

Nero is defeated, and NuKirk (at NuSpock's urging) gives the order to blow the f***er up after the former rejects an offer of assistance. Which is about as appallingly unTREK-like as you could possibly get. And it's presented as a victory.

••

"JJ, we need one last big boom to make the Trekkies cum in their pants."

I've long been convinced that the only reasons fans pit them against each other are because they both have "star" in their titles, and both quickly developed intensely devoted fanbases.

***

Greg, I think there may be an even simpler answer, based on my life experiences.

I've seen this many times, particularly at primary school. WCW fans against WWF fans; those who like Coca-Cola against those who like Pepsi; DC fans having arguments with Marvel fans; and, of course, STAR TREK and STAR WARS.

Fans love these "battles". I don't know why. Personally, I can love more than one thing.

Nero is defeated, and NuKirk (at NuSpock's urging) gives the order to blow the f***er up after the former rejects an offer of assistance. Which is about as appallingly unTREK-like as you could possibly get. And it's presented as a victory.

••

"JJ, we need one last big boom to make the Trekkies cum in their pants."

"On it..."

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I'm reminded of the scene in ED WOOD where Ed is talking to Rance Howard's character Old Man McCoy. Ed is telling him the end of The Bride of the Monster. McCoy said he wanted the movie to end in a big explosion. Ed said but it ends with Dr. Vornoff getting killed by his octopus. Which prompts McCoy to say "Not anymore"

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